Resolutions
by kcl71
Summary: Right around New Year's Eve 1986. Duke is awaiting sentencing, and hiding out in Sean Donely's secret room. This is Duke and Anna's first real alone time since he was shot and paralyzed while saving Robert's life.
1. Chapter 1

For those of you not entirely familiar with Duke and Anna history, there is a clip on youtube of what happens prior to this "missing scene". For some reason, I cannot post a link, but search for Duke Paralyzed/Prison 27 to find it on youtube.

* * *

Sean Donely woke suddenly from a deep sleep, thinking he was having a nightmare. He'd heard a chill-inducing shriek-that was what had woken him. But the penthouse was silent now. As it should be. It had been just a dream. He allowed himself to relax and drift back off.

And then there it was again, jolting him instantly back into consciousness. A woman's scream, shrill before ending abruptly. Such a sound he'd never heard since…since….since…? He struggled to place why it sounded familiar. And then his stomach dropped as he realized: Anna Devane's final double-agent mission-the one that had literally blown up in her face.

Anna. She and Duke Lavery were in the secret room Sean had had built for his goddaughter, Robin, the daughter of Anna and his best friend, Robert Scorpio. Anna and her lover, Duke, were in protective custody until Duke's sentencing, hiding out from the vengeance of the mob against which Duke had testified. The room was supposed to be sound-proof, to keep its inhabitants from being detected. So if he could hear her….

Sean leapt from his bed and grabbed the automatic revolver from his bedside table. He ran silently down the hallway to the hidden panel that opened into the secret room. To his surprise, the door was still closed. All was quiet. But if someone had gotten in there with Anna and Duke….

Or maybe no one had gotten in there with them. Maybe Anna had let herself be fooled again, and convinced Sean and Robert to be taken in, too. If Lavery had hurt her….

"Anna!" Sean shouted, pounding on the door. The room was not only a safe room but a panic room, capable of being secured from the inside. And it had been. He couldn't get in unless the occupants let him in. "It's me, Sean! Anna, open up!"

No response. Complete silence.

"Devane, you open this door right now," he shouted, falling back into an old role and pulling rank. "That's an order!"

The camouflaged door swung slowly inward, and there she was, looking small and vulnerable, wrapped in a pale dressing gown, her eyes huge and dark in a flushed face surrounded by hair that was a fright. She looked like she'd suffered an electric shock.

"Yes, Sean?" she said to him.

"Are you all right?" Donely asked, concerned. "Where's Duke?"

Anna took a step back. "He's right here. We haven't gone anywhere. We're fine."

Sean took a step into the room, looking around for intruders or evidence of a struggle. Peering through the darkness to the right, he could just make out Lavery in Robin's twin bed, obviously naked but for the sheet pulled up to his waist.

"Good evening, Sean," Duke offered. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah," Sean said. "Yeah…. I just… I thought I heard…. I was worried…," he stammered, looking at Duke and then back to Anna again.

"Oh….," Anna said, raising her eyebrows and turning a brighter shade of pink. "I'm sorry. Everything's great…. We didn't mean to…disturb you…."

"No, no, it's okay," Sean rushed to assure her. "I'm sorry…. I just…. I panicked…. Overreaction…. On high alert…. You know how it is…," he said apologetically. "I'll just…. I'll be going now." He turned and stepped quickly out the door.

"Thanks," Anna giggled. "Sorry. We'll try…I'll try not to…worry you again," she promised as she pushed the door shut.

"Come back to bed, luv," Sean heard Duke say quietly, just before the door closed tight.

Anna snickered as she walked back toward the bed, shedding her robe and thinking back on the events that had led up to Sean's sudden appearance in the doorway

[*****Flashback*******]

"Shhh," Duke had hushed her.

"What?"

"Would you mind saving the rest of the story till the morning? Because I have some…unfinished business I'd like you to take care of."

Anna smiled at him, knowingly, and leaned in to meet his kiss. She kept leaning, pushing him down to lay across the pint-size bed.

Her hair-so soft, so sweet-smelling-streamed down around their faces, and Duke knew his patience was just about at an end. It had been so very long-weeks and months-since they had been together like this, and so much pain had passed between them. He needed this-needed her-to dull the memory of it all.

Duke sank his fingers into Anna's hair and stroked it back out of her face so that he could look up at her smiling down on him. There had been a time, so very recently, when he'd never thought to see her smile at him again. He'd known how badly he had hurt her, with his involvement with the mob and the lies and betrayals that had entailed, and he had thought he would never get to make love to her again. And then the shooting-both shootings...first Ramsey's blanks in the brownstone and then his live ammunition meant for Scorpio-had, miraculously, brought Anna back to Duke. She'd told him that thinking he was dead had forced her to admit that she still loved him-and that she didn't want to live without him.

But that second time, he'd woken to find himself paralyzed, and then he'd thought that he never _could_ make love to her again-that he would never be able to. And he'd thought that he would rather be dead.

"After the surgery…," he'd asked Dr. Tony Jones haltingly, in private, when that surgeon had nearly convinced him that his paralysis could be repaired, "will I have…full function? Of everything. Not just my legs…."

"You mean sexual function," Tony clarified matter-of-factly, sympathetically.

"Yes," Duke admitted.

"Yes, I would expect you to. That's not something you should have to worry about."

But he had worried. He'd suspected that this would be his punishment for failing to be man enough to stand up and tell Anna the truth: His manhood would be stripped from him, leaving him emasculated and undeserving of a passionate, loving woman like Anna.

Now Anna's kiss had proven that was not the case. Already, with just a kiss, he felt the first stirrings of physical desire for her. It would be a struggle to savor the feeling rather than rush greedily to glut himself on what he had missed so much-and already feared to lose again.

They had so little time, he thought, as he kissed her and stroked her hair. Just days until he would be sentenced and incarcerated alongside men who sought to kill him. It was so tempting to hurry to get his fill of her, to try to get enough to tide him over through what were sure to be some very dark and lonely nights….

It was Anna herself that kept him in check. She needed to go slowly, needed to feel his love as well as his lust. She knew, now, that he had risked his life for her. He had turned against the mob, taken a bullet for Robert, and promised to turn state's evidence all out of love for her. All that, and yet still it stung that before he had loved her, he hadn't thought twice about the damage he could do to her. He had first pursued her, she suspected, because he could, because she was a challenge, because she was an enviable prize-and because he had seen in her eyes, the first time they'd looked at each other, that he would eventually, inevitably, succeed. Even after they'd become so much more to each other, he had proposed marriage to her because the mob had ordered him to do it. He had admitted to that, and that confession, more than anything else, was what had broken her heart.

Now he was once again claiming that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. But she knew he said that while believing that the rest of his life might actually be spent behind bars-and that it might be very short in duration, if Angus failed to protect him and the mob had its way.

And so her kiss lingered, trying to slow down time, trying to lengthen the minutes, trying to keep him with her as long as possible.


	2. Chapter 2

Duke stroked Anna's hair again, and his fingers snagged on the barrette that gathered the tresses atop her head. The metal bit his skin and yanked at her scalp, prompting the pair of them to complain, "Ouch…," in unison. Anna lifted her hand to remove the offending accessory, and the rest of her hair tumbled down.

"That's better," Duke breathed. He pulled her closer toward him and moved to kiss her neck, finding another obstacle there in the form of the satiny turtleneck she wore.

It was the last straw: He couldn't wait any more. He pushed at her heavy cardigan, easing it back off her shoulders. "I want to see all of you, Anna," he murmured. "I've dreamt of your beautiful body, woman…."

It was true. All of the long weeks of his recovery in General Hospital, most of his hours had been spent sleeping. He had dreamed of Anna almost constantly, and far too often, in his darkest moments, there'd been nightmares of Anna hurting, Anna crying, Anna broken, all because of him. Finally, on Christmas Eve, Father Christmas had given him a present: A dream of Anna happy, smiling beneath the mistletoe. Duke had taken her in his arms, his body strong and whole again, and he'd loved her-oh, how he'd loved her….

He'd woken Christmas morning anxious and conflicted: vexed that she'd been just a dream, depressed that this holiday with her could not help but be a less than perfectly happy one, and at the same time relieved that Dr. Jones had been right. Duke's virility was restored, if his reaction to his dream was anything to judge by.

Now, he was sliding his hand up Anna's thigh, beneath the long skirt she wore. Until she sat up, warm and tingling with his passionate words. She unzipped her knee-length black boots and let them thud heavily to the floor. Then she stood and stepped away from the bed, turning to face him.

Duke sat up and began to remove his own clothing as he watched Anna undress for him. He pulled off his socks while she reached beneath her hair and unfastened the buttons at the back of the high neck of her blouse. He unbuttoned his shirt and stripped it off whilst Anna pulled hers from the waist of her skirt and then up and over her head.

Duke took a deep breath, his nostrils flaring as he looked at her: Her hair, full of static, floated around her like a black nimbus cloud, outlining the paleness of her skin and the modest white cotton bra she wore. He stood to remove his pants as she unzipped her skirt and let it drop around her feet, revealing matching white panties.

"My angel," Duke murmured, thinking she looked even more gorgeous and more innocent than in his dreams.

Anna was reaching behind her to unhook her bra, but before she could finish, Duke had reached her, wrapping his arms tightly around her and pinning hers against her sides. He kissed her mouth, groaning as she opened it to him.

Anna felt herself grow weak as Duke crushed her to himself and plundered her mouth with his tongue. Thank god, she thought, she no longer had to try to control herself-no longer had to force herself to pull away from him. Now she could give in and give herself over to him as she'd wanted to do since the last time they'd kissed like this: the kiss in the catacombs that they'd tried to convince themselves was a kiss goodbye. She would never truly be able to bring herself to tell him goodbye, she realized now as her knees buckled and she melted against the hard heat of his body.

She would have fallen if it weren't for his arms around her, and he plunged one hand into her hair to cradle the back of her head. His other arm slid lower, to wrap around her waist, and his hand palmed one of her buttocks, pulling her against him.

Anna could feel Duke's desire for her pressing against her, and she lay her own hand against his abdomen, feeling him tremble at her touch just as he had in the country cabin when he'd coerced her into affixing a packet of fake blood to his bare skin. She whimpered into his mouth.

Duke broke his mouth from Anna's and kissed the side of her neck. He pulled his right hand through her hair and down her back, and he unclasped her bra. He pulled it from her shoulders and off. He took a single step backward, putting just enough space between their bodies so that he could see all of hers. He caressed her breasts and ran his thumbs over her nipples. Then he slid his hands down her sides and hooked his thumbs beneath the waistband of her panties. In another instant the damp cotton was on the floor, leaving Anna completely naked.

She tugged at his boxer shorts until he was equally so. She closed the gap between them, wrapped her arms around his neck, and pulled his face to hers for another hungry kiss.

Duke pinched Anna's nipple between a thumb and forefinger, making her moan and thrust her hips against him. Her hand, in turn, wrapped around his erect cock. He stroked his other hand across her lower belly and then downward. His long middle finger skimmed over her wet clit, teasingly, and tarried until Anna moaned again, open-mouthed, against his shoulder. Then he slipped the finger inside her, his cock jerking in her hand as he felt how needy she was, and his thumb took up the motion against her clit.

"Oh god, Duke…," Anna whispered, fully realizing for the first time that when she'd told him, in the catacombs, "I can't stay in your arms!" she'd been fearful not because she'd mistrusted him but because she hadn't trusted herself. Even when she could disregard his promises and ignore his pleas, what she could not resist was Duke's touch. She could spend forever telling herself to think with her head and not with her heart, but still the rest of her body would refuse to listen to reason.

With his beautiful Anna veritably wrapped around his finger once more, Duke felt his own knees grew weak. He hadn't yet regained his full strength, despite the weeks of physical therapy that had re-taught him to walk again. And his need for Anna was overpowering, making him sway on his feet. He wanted to get her into bed. "Come on," he murmured, moving back in that direction, still clasping her, inside and out, gently tugging at her.

Having neither the ability nor the will to resist, Anna followed, letting him guide her down onto the narrow little bed.


	3. Chapter 3

Duke lay down half atop Anna-there was no room in the half-sized bed to do otherwise-and bent his head to kiss her breasts. He looked up at her face and met her eyes. "Anna, I want you so badly, luv," he said. It was true, and it sounded better than the whole truth: that his cock and balls were throbbing and he feared they might explode. Every moment he had spent alone with Anna but unable to touch her had made him want her. The rare moments when he had touched her had made him want her even more. Now, accumulated desire and the aftermath of his injury had whittled away his customary control. "I need to be inside you."

They both felt her tighten around his finger. "Yes. Please, yes," Anna said heatedly, spreading her legs wider.

Duke raised himself on both hands above Anna and slid into her, each of them moaning at the incomparable feel of the other. Duke began to move inside her, slowly, gently, and almost immediately the sensation broke all the tension that had built between them since that day of his confession. Anna cried out, as uncontrollable tremors wracked her body in quick succession. She looked at Duke through wide, wild eyes, as he grunted and continued the deliberate strokes that were compelling her climax.

"God…," she moaned as she rode the great pulses of pleasure. "Oh, I love you…. Oh, thank god…." Thank god they still had this; thank god she still had him. Thank god he still loved her; thank god he hadn't died. And thank god he'd recovered, she realized.

When he'd been paralyzed, she'd tried to convince both of them that if he were destined to remain so, it would not matter. It would make no difference. She loved him unconditionally, and apart from that, he was a wonderful lover with the ability to please her in myriad inventive ways. None of that would have changed. But, oh, she admitted now, she would have missed this, the most intimate act of lovemaking. This inimitable joining of woman and man, coming together, he inside her and she surrounding him.

God, she was the sexiest woman he'd ever known, Duke thought, as he thrust harder, deeper, faster into Anna. She took and gave so much pleasure, he panted silently, feeling his cock massaged by the seizing of her lovely body. So warm, so wet, so womanly, so wanting him. He didn't think he'd want to go on living, without this. Without her.

"Thank god…," he heard her whispering, and he echoed, "God…," mindlessly, arching his back and driving his hips against her and his cock deep into her. And then he came in a powerful rush, shouting in release and relief as he poured himself into Anna.

All tension having been spent, Duke crumpled atop Anna, lying heavily upon her and burying his face in the soft darkness of her hair on the pillow. They were both still faintly trembling, still breathing heavily, and they were still joined to each other. Anna wrapped her arms around Duke and stroked his upper back, and after a few moments she realized that, rather than relaxing in the warm peace that she was feeling, his shaking and sighing were growing more pronounced.

She turned her face toward his, and she stroked his hair along the back of his head. "Duke…. Look at me, darling."

He did, and she saw that he was crying.

He hid his face in the curve of her neck. He was embarrassed, and angry with himself-tired of appearing so vulnerable before her. He'd wanted to be strong again, after having her see him at his weakest, as an invalid and a common fool of a criminal. But he couldn't help it. Anna Devane broke down all his defenses. "I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice raspy. "I've been so afraid. So afraid of losing this. I couldn't bear it, Anna."

"Shhh," she soothed, and she held his face between her hands and drew back to look at him. "Neither could I," she told him, kissing his eyelids; his long, lowered eyelashes, thick with tears; his damp cheeks. "It's alright. I'm not going anywhere. I'm right here."

Neither of them mentioned the obvious: that if the court was not merciful, it would be Duke who would be going away, perhaps for a very long time.

"Thank you," he said taking deep breaths, trying to calm himself. He kissed her hair, her forehead, her face. "Thank you for giving me another chance, Anna. You won't regret it, I promise you." His mouth found hers then, and they kissed soulfully, Duke rolling to one side to take her into his arms.

Both physically and emotionally spent, they lay in each other's embrace and slowly drifted to sleep that way


End file.
